Climate change and social mobility
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The content management system at The Atlantic magazine seems to have slipped a cog or two, and associated one story's headline with another story's subhead. Either that, or ticks play a larger role in American social mobility than I would have guessed.
The image on the right appeared in my email inbox this morning, along with a dozen others promoting "A selection of top stories from The Atlantic this week". Turns out it combines
- the headline from Joe Pinsker, "The ‘Hidden Mechanisms’ That Help Those Born Rich to Excel in Elite Jobs", whose actual subhead is "When two sociologists interviewed highly paid architects, TV producers, actors, and accountants, they encountered work cultures that favor the already affluent";
- and the subhead from David Dobbs, "Climate Change Enters Its Blood-Sucking Phase", about health threats to moose in Vermont, with the subhead "As winters grow warmer in North America, thirsty ticks are on the move".
But until I did a bit of searching and link-following, I wondered.
Jerry Packard said,
March 3, 2019 @ 2:21 pm
What a riot!
Ray said,
March 3, 2019 @ 4:28 pm
yikes! a mashup of virtue-signalling news headlines! who'd a thunk it? what with today's algorithms?
AntC said,
March 3, 2019 @ 4:30 pm
I see no problem: the thirsty ticks are Those Born Rich.
The thirstiest tick (and prominent climate-change denier) has moved from New York to Washington D.C. He was indeed Born Rich, and is now in an Elite Job. The Excelling not so much.
Gwen Katz said,
March 3, 2019 @ 4:40 pm
Time for the old joke about the etymology of the word "politics:" "poly" meaning "many" and "ticks" meaning "bloodsucking parasites."
AntC said,
March 3, 2019 @ 6:38 pm
ticks play a larger role in American social mobility than I would have guessed.
Accompanying the tick-in-chief, there's a whole family of ticks and hangers-on socially mobile from NY to WDC. Their names and back stories you'd think too unbelievable even for a mafia pulp novel: Scaramucci, Giuliana, the obligatory Jewish bent lawyer, Flynn; the son-in-law holding the fort while his dad's in clink; the mysterious guy with shady dealings in Eastern Europe; the gangster's Moll with the impenetrable accent; the appointees rorting the public purse; the frat boy with his whine of entitlement at being challenged; …
Two-and-a-bit years ago, "I would [not] have guessed" it could happen in a mature democracy with so many constitutional checks and balances that usually government fails to get anything done at all.
When is the USA going to wake up and realise that whatever the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, they couldn't anticipate everything 200+ years into the future; and chiefly the system of government has become a breeding-ground for bloodsucking parasites.
David Morris said,
March 3, 2019 @ 11:22 pm
Some people tick all the right boxes. Some ticks people all the right boxes.
Thomas Rees said,
March 4, 2019 @ 2:27 am
AntC: USA deffo needs a word for “rorting”. The things going on in DC make Australian pollies look like amateurs. For example, Tim Wilson and his cousin Geoff are just flailing about in the franking credits swamp. Compare that to Senator Mitch McConnell, who managed to get his wife made Secretary of Transportation. Or take Wilbur Ross, Secretary of
RortingCommerce.AntC said,
March 4, 2019 @ 3:56 am
@Thomas R: "pork-barrel politics" U.S. 1873.
"Gerrymander" U.S. 1812.
I daresay that U.S. politics has a rich vocabulary describing skulduggery. Deployed by one party when the other party does in power exactly what the now-opposition had been doing when it was in power. I noticed the fake outrage from the Republicans when the Democrats tried to block Supreme Court nominations. (That is, the same Republicans who blocked Obama's nominee.)
OTOH Australian Politics seems to make a speciality of the PM's own Party sticking a knife in their back. Is there a word for that? (Scaramucci was not a back-stabber, he claimed.)
Jerry Packard said,
March 4, 2019 @ 10:19 am
What Gwen Katz and AntC said. Sorry!
DWalker07 said,
March 5, 2019 @ 10:18 am
I think you spelled Joe Pinsker's name wrong (according to the image, at least).